This year Westbury is the Tasmanian finalist. The awards night will be held at Sheffield at the Public School Hall. Tasmania has won this award three times since 1990. Other past winners include Swansea in 2007 and Stanley in 1996.

The tidy towns program recognises the work undertaken by individuals and groups in rural communities. The national judge Jill Grant visited Westbury last December as part of her judging tour.

At the judging stage, Westbury was marked against the criteria: community action and partnerships, litter prevention, resource recovery and waste management, environmental protection and innovation, water conservation, energy innovation, heritage and culture.

The awards have numerous long-term benefits. Entries involve schools, foster civic pride especially among our youth, promote tourism and provide a clean, safe environment. The Tidy Towns theme is a great antidote to vandalism and social disorder. It combats cynicism; where littering and failure to properly manage waste emanate from the simplistic notion that an individual's actions won't make a difference.

The awards combat this mentality and, most importantly, they educate and foster civic pride in schools in such fields as recycling and proper disposal of industrial and residential waste.

So often you see cities and towns heaped in roadside rubbish, and others spotless throughout. It says volumes about the town and its local council.

If they are not getting the message through to schools and parents, that the health and wellbeing of a town is evident from its appearance, then there is a systemic failure of the system, and the civic leaders who manage it.